the missionary's wife

I just started school for the year. I think I really only finished about a week before, but knowing that I will need to take time off for a move and a new baby, I am trying to plan ahead.

It is exciting to be teaching 5 students at once. Really everyone needs help with their math which is very mentally stimulating. One huge blessing is having four readers. It is nice that many of them are learning lots on their own and learning how to read and follow directions.

We are reading through the Little House On The Prairie series, we have done some related map work, and made a list of their work compared to ours. It really helps me be aware of the fact that most of my work is picking up and organizing stuff. I am on the lookout for ways to scale back on that problem, I am sure a move will help a bit.

I am doing a weekly blog over at the Homeschool Blogger Company Front Porch, so it is a struggle to get things posted here, but I do appreciate reading what everyone else has to say.

Blessings,

Jennifer

I haven’t posted here for a while porque, I have to come up with something inspiring every week for homeschoolblogger at www.homeschoolblogger.com/hsbcompanyblog which is really taxing my lazy brain.

I am going to be speaking next Saturday at the CFS conference in Escondido (near San Diego) and so I have been trying really hard to keep to our schedule so that my darling teenage daughter doesn’t blast me with comments such as "Mom, I think you have only done that once" when I talk about kids preparing snacks and other tidbits.

It is nice to have children who encourage us to do our best, even as we encourage them in the same way. To stay on track with our good habits, we all took a few moments this morning to clean up rooms, brush teeth and tidy the house.  They are all outside now working on their little gardens and washing up horse gear in hopes they can catch our neighbor’s horses (they have permission from the neighbor).  Scott is busy at the orphanage directing a group who are building another bedroom for them.  It will be a huge blessing for them to have the boys not sleeping in the living room.

I am still struggling to figure out how to upload pictures.  Every few months I figure it out and then don’t use my newfound knowledge for a few months and forget.

The sun is finally shining here!  We have been rained in and because of the rain, out of water(there is some irony there)every weekend this month.  The rain turns the road to mush which means the water truck can’t get in until the road dries.  It is nice however to have some green hills to look at here in normally dry Baja.

I flew through Bible, history and math yesterday so we could spend the nicest part of the day planting strawberries, spreading compost and lovingly potting a kangaroo paw(a flower, not the foot of a mammal).  I do hope it all lives.  The soil here seems to be completely dead!  About half of what I plant dies, good thing most of it is free stuff.  Geraniums are the one thing that seem to do well.  That and my aloes which are rapidly making progeny.

We spent the hour before supper finishing up language and then after supper watched Lillies of The Field, with Sydney Poitier. It was fun to see all the cultures in this sweet movie.

Ella turned one yesterday, It is amazing how fast the time has gone.  We were gone all day using our free zoo passes that the children won from the library and taking Emelie to her speech club.  Today has been catch up, laundry(very difficult without regular power) clean up, math, Eden’s program, preschool with Emmett, change diapers, wash dishes, etc. etc.

I do enjoy caring for my children and home, but a day like this after being gone for a day, sure does wear me out.  My boys just came inside from hauling buckets of gravel, I am glad they got some exercise and created some more mud free paths for us.

We were at a park for a few minutes to see Scott’s dad.  I am not really taller than my dear husband.